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Tuesday, 27 January 2009

Ok, so there’s a million and one blogs about music floating around the inter web. New music, cool music, country, punk, flunk, ta-dunk and every new trend that comes around every few weeks; there are loads of blogs to cater to those markets so what makes this one different?

As a writer and music lover I read a lot of music press, blogs and magazines. I have been obsessed with music since I was a teenager, a whole year ago those were the days; while the publications I favour have changed, from Q to NME then over to Plan B, the frequency with which women feature in these publications has not. It is a rare occasion when a woman is featured on the cover of a music magazine fully clothed, the belief being that women don’t sell.

Too often when women do become the focus of the music press it is treated as a freak phenomenon; one in which only when the moon is full, the planets are aligned and every living being on earth is facing north can the prophecy of women in music be fulfilled.

Usually the articles tend to question this strange happening. “What is the meaning of this? There must be an answer, a reason, an EXPLANATION.” So due to this freak out every artist mentioned is probed with a question along the lines of ‘so..........why do you think there are more female artists around today?’ The blatant fact that women are human and therefore as creative as men seems to escape the journalist, desperate for a killer quote, for just a second.

Blogs are meant to be a new medium through which we, the reader and consumer, can receive unfiltered and pure information. I don’t believe many bloggers are taking up this opportunity that frees them from the restraints of magazine advertising and sales figures.

With this blog I want to show how women have always, are always and will ALWAYS be involved in music. To whoever stumbles across this blog I hope you enjoy it and that I neither offend nor bore you. To celebrate the launch of Don’t Dance Her Down Boys here are The Fiery Furnaces live playing the song that inspired my blog, ‘Don’t Dance Her Down’, and my other favourite ‘Single Again.’